Joshua

It's important in this day and age to take a step back from whatever you are doing and wait. This concept eludes so many of us because we are currently in a society that needs things done, fast. The Pet Game genre is no exception to this society of "Go". As users on a pet site we need to learn to give time to content managers while as those managers we need to allow time for fermentation.

The fact that users on any site want constant content is nothing new nor is it something content managers are confused about. Running a site requiers time, dedication and patience. To be able to provide the user with the best experience possible is the key of the industry though it's not something that can be given over night.

I've noticed, over my years in many aspects of Pet Sites, that sites are either unwilling to be patient (causing lack of updates or indeed an update schedule) or are overzealous about being patient (in which case nothing is ever completed to its full potential).

If a site is unwilling to be patient the user suffer greatly. I put this in individual terms to emphasize the importance of the user to the content manager(s). An update schedule is something that a site needs to remain active and enticing to new users; without one the site is stagnent, dead. Well, dead until the next update which, with the lack of a schedule, could be weeks or months.

So what is a content manager to do about something like this once they are trapped by their displanning? The simple answer is to be patient with your staff, alert your users to the down time, and to be open about what is going on. Letting your users know that updates are going to be slow is much better than leaving them in the dark. After all, they are the reason you have a site in the first place. It is important to be patient with your staff in times like these because stressing them out will not produce anything of quality.

If you didn't prepare months of content (or in some cases back-up content, more on that later) ahead of time you might find yourself in a stagnent period. You might be barley getting by on what is being produced by your staff while your users are getting frustrated. Instead of rushing through things to apease the user-base simply explain the situation while giving them a taste of what is to come. If you take the time to prepare new content, constant content, then in the long run the site will flourish.

Back-up Content is something I've never seen any site do, at least to my knowledge, which is very sad. This is essentially content that can be served up at any time you need it to be. It is generic and bendable to your will, something that can be used in times of lull or to put a barrier between massive updates (sometimes too much of the same content at once is a bad thing, cushioning it with non-related things could help). It is important to have this content because you never know what the future will hold.

I guess the reason I've gone on this rampage-of-a-blog-post is because of what's been going on with Ikoram (I just needed to vent). Things are indeed going slow but it's going good as well. We started production back on December 26th, 2009 and it has been a long road finding artists, programmers, writers, etc.. Being slow to produce things has hit me particularly hard because almost every day something new pops into my head that solves a previous problem or adds more to the site.

Ikoram might still be in basic development almost one-and-a-half-years after inception (inb4 go deeper) but I am proud. I am proud because I am patient. There have been months between progress on the site which have caused me to reconsider the whole thing. I am glad to have stuck it out however because now we have programming being done (which makes me happy) and art continuing to be done. The art is slow but amazing quality, and for free, and the programming is going to be paid off when I can, which is amazing.

If there is one thing I can share with anyone else it is that patients is the best thing for a Pet Site, really. I would rather take three or more years to develop Ikoram, or anything game, than rush anything out. Get your content correct before you worry about anything else, without content you've got nothing and will have nothing. It might take a while but it is worth it in the end.

Joshua F.
Owner, Ikoram.com